


Selfish Love

by Lobotomite



Category: Holby City
Genre: Gen, and Arthur's first cancer storyline, set at some vague point between Zosia's bipolar storyline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 03:22:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14440383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobotomite/pseuds/Lobotomite
Summary: Dom's used to grasping for attention and affection and meaning, to twisting himself into what he thinks other people want to see and what he wishes he was. He's not used to people pulling down his facade, seeing the real him, and staying; he's especially not used to them freely offering him the love and validation he's spent so long trying to find.





	Selfish Love

Dom doesn't think he's ever been this warm and comfortable.

Okay, so not _physically._  Physically he's pretty damn uncomfortable, if he's going to be honest. His neck is tight and sore from falling asleep sitting up with his head lolling against the back of the couch, his back aches like an old man's for the same reason, and his left arm is so completely asleep that he's dreading the pins and needles that will accompany getting the feeling back.

But all of that pales in comparison to the way his heart feels too full at the weight of Arthur slumped against him, head tucked into his shoulder and glasses digging into Dom's skin, hair tickling Dom's jaw. The TV that they'd fallen asleep watching is off, and that plus a blanket that's appeared draped over them both is evidence of Zosia's gentle – probably at least slightly drunken – affection and care, and that sends another wave of pleased warmth through him too, even as the blanket plus the build up of body heat has him uncomfortably hot.

He's still not entirely used to this; to a house feeling so much like a home. To two _people_ feeling like home.

It's not like he's never had roommates before; of course he has. He got out of his childhood home – where his father's moods hung over everything like a cloud even when he wasn't there – as soon as possible, after all. And he'd always been friendly with the people he lived with. But he'd never properly been _friends_ with them – hell, they hadn't ever even properly known him, and he was happy to keep his knowledge of them as surface level as possible. The only time he would ever have ended up asleep in the living room was if he'd had far too much to drink and passed out, and if that was the case he certainly wouldn't have woken up with a blanket laid carefully over him. And if he had walked past a former roommate passed out in the living room, he would have laughed and left them where they were and then taken great pleasure in the schadenfreude of their hangover the next day.

But being around Zosia and Arthur... it's changed him. Changed him into a person he swore he would never let himself be – a person who's vulnerable, who lets himself care too much. Who does things that can get him in serious trouble just to help someone he cares about. Sometimes it terrifies him, the power these two people have over him.

But he wouldn't change it for the world.


End file.
